Concerns over crime in the area have given new life to five town watches near Penn's campus.
The West Philadelphia Town Watch Task Force, which has been inactive for about two and a half years, is currently reorganizing and recruiting new members in five neighborhoods.
The town watches consist of volunteer residents patrolling local neighborhoods with radios and flashlights to deter criminals. Organizers do not yet know exactly when they will be up and running.
"When things stay quiet, everyone just stays away until something drastic happens," task force Vice Chairwoman Cynthia Preston said. Preston also heads the Squirrel Hill Town Watch, which patrols the area from 45th to 49th streets and Baltimore to Kingsessing avenues.
Time and commitment -- not cash -- are what the five town watches are asking community residents to contribute. Martin Cabry, chairman of the task force, said that the public tends to respond with cash donations when manpower is what organizers really need.
But even volunteers who do sign up for patrols may lose interest when there is no crime on the job.
"When you get rid of crime, you're successful. But your success kills you off," Cabry said.
Unlike police officers, town watch patrol members do not carry guns, which may make them more vulnerable to attackers. Volunteers are frequently cautioned to respond to an incident by immediately calling the police.
"We really don't want any of them to take any chances and get themselves hurt," Philadelphia Police Lt. Fred Carbonara said.
Area resident Gregory Cojulun, who patrols the area from 40th to 52nd streets and from Spruce Street to Chester Avenue on his own, stressed that his main job is to prevent crime from happening, not to take authority into his own hands.
"You don't want to run into somebody with a weapon," Cojulun said, adding that for him the best part of volunteering is an uneventful patrol night.
But Cojulun cannot take on crime alone. Cabry said he hopes to recruit 80 to 100 community members for the organized watches.
Although that number pales in comparison to the 400 members the organization had in 2000, Cabry said he would be fortunate to reach his more modest goal.
The task force's last large recruitment campaign occurred in response to the 1996 murder of Vladimir Sled, a Russian-born Penn researcher who was killed on the 4300 block of Larchwood Avenue.
While the task force primarily looks out for crimes in the area from 40th to 52nd streets and from Market Street to Woodland Avenue, Preston said that organizers also pay attention to crimes that occur on Penn's campus.
If "it happened on Penn's campus, it could move to 48th Street," Preston said. "You have to stop it in its tracks."
In the late 1990s, Penn boasted its own student-run town watch group ‹¨« dubbed Penn Watch -- but the University signed a contract with a security company in 1996 that shifted this responsibility to the subcontracted guards.
Without town watch groups, police would not be aware of issues that may be brewing in the community, 16th District police officer Erica Parker said.
Gwen Hall, a West Philadelphia resident and Penn employee, said she would be more inclined to notify her town watch than police of a potential problem in the community.
Police officers "might be in on" the issue, she said jokingly.
